Smart.
Prof had … killed Val and Exel without a second thought. He’d do the same to me. I hurried through the building, looking for the way out onto the street. What was that low, rumbling sound I heard in the distance?
I’d leave the building and find a place to hide. But … could I really hide from Jonathan Phaedrus? I had no resources, no contacts. If I hid, he’d find me. If I fled, I’d spend the rest of my life—probably a short life—running.
When he got here, he might very well kill Dawnslight, and in so doing, destroy Babilar. No more food. No more light.
I stopped in the living room, panting. Running did no good. I would need to face Prof eventually.
I’d do it now.
So, despite every instinct screaming at me to hide, I turned and looked for a way up onto the roof. The place was a suburban home that was surprisingly well maintained. What had happened to Dawnslight’s family? Were they out there somewhere, worried over their dreaming son?
I finally found the stairs and climbed up to the third floor. From there I climbed out of a window onto the roof. Unlike most of the buildings in Babilar, this one was peaked, and I carefully walked up to the tip. The sun, not yet risen, had brought a glow to the horizon. By that light I saw the source of the roar I’d heard earlier: the water was retreating from Babilar.
It washed outward like a sudden tide, exposing skyscrapers covered in barnacles. Sparks. The foundations had to be incredibly weakened from being submerged for so long. The tide might very well destroy the city, killing everyone Prof had given himself to save. One careless swing of my sword might have cost thousands of lives.
Well, no buildings were collapsing at the moment, and there was nothing I could do about them if they did.
So I sat down.
Sitting up there in the night’s last darkness gave me some perspective. I thought about my part in all of this, and whether I’d pushed Prof too hard to become a hero. How much of this was my fault? Did it matter?
Regalia probably would have managed all of this if I hadn’t been hounding Prof. The most disturbing part was that she had accomplished it by preying upon Prof’s own innate honor.
I was certain of one thing. Whatever had happened to Prof, it wasn’t his fault. Any more than it would be a man’s fault if, drugged to oblivion by a cruel prank, he thought the people around him were devils and started shooting them. Regalia had killed Exel and Val, not Prof. Of course, maybe she couldn’t be blamed either. She was in the power’s grip too.
If not her, then who? I looked away from the horizon and toward that glowing red spot. It hung on the opposite side of the sky from the sun.
“You’re behind this,” I whispered to Calamity. “Who are you, really?”
Calamity gave no answer as it—he?—sank below the horizon. I turned back toward Babilar. I might not be to blame for what had happened to Prof, ultimately, but that didn’t mean I was innocent. Ever since coming to Babilar, I’d stumbled from one crisis to another, rarely following the plan.
Reckless heroism. Prof was right.
So what do I do now? I thought. Prof, the real Prof, would want me to have a plan.
Nothing came to me. Of course, this wasn’t the time to plan. The time to plan was before everything went wrong, before your mentor was betrayed and corrupted, before the girl you loved was shot. Before your friends died.
Something appeared in the distance, moving over the waters, and I sat up straighter to get a better look. A small disc—a forcefield, I realized—with a figure in black standing atop it. It grew larger and larger as it sped through the air.
So Prof could use his fields to fly. His power portfolio was amazing. I stood up, balancing on the rooftop, gripping the necklace that Abraham had given me, which dangled from its chain in my fist.
It flashed bright as the sun finally broke over the horizon, bathing me in light. Was it my mind, or was the light stronger than it should have been?
Prof approached on his flying disc, his lab coat fluttering behind him. He landed on the other side of the small peaked roof from me, and regarded me with a strange interest. Again I was struck by how different he seemed. This man was cold. It was him, but a him with all of the wrong emotions.
“You don’t have to do this, Prof,” I told him.
He smiled and raised a hand. Sunlight bathed our rooftop.
“I believe in the heroes!” I shouted, holding up the pendant. “I believe they will come, as my father believed. This is not how it will end! Prof, I have faith. In you.”
A forcefield globe appeared around me, breaking the roof tiles under my feet, enclosing me perfectly. It was exactly like the one that had killed Val.
“I believe,” I whispered.
Prof squeezed his hand closed.
The sphere compressed … but suddenly, though I’d been inside it a moment ago, I wasn’t in it now. I could see it right in front of me, shrunken to the size of a basketball.
What?
Prof frowned. That sunlight, it was getting brighter, and brighter, and …
And a figure of pure white light exploded into existence between me and Prof. It blazed like the sun itself, a feminine figure, radiant, powerful, golden hair blown back and shining like a corona.
Megan had arrived.
Prof summoned another forcefield globe around me. The figure of light thrust a hand toward him, and suddenly that globe was around Prof himself instead. Megan was changing reality, making possibilities into fact.
Prof looked even more surprised this time. He dismissed the globe and summoned another around the figure of light, but when it started to shrink it was around him again in an eyeblink, closing him in, threatening to crush him.
He dismissed it, and I saw something else in his eyes I’d never seen before. Fear.
They’re all afraid, I thought. Deep down. Newton fled from me. Steelheart killed anyone who might know anything about him. They’re driven by fear.
That wasn’t the Prof I knew, but it was the High Epic Phaedrus. Confronted by someone who manipulated his powers in ways he didn’t understand, he became terrified. He stumbled away, eyes wide.
In the space of a heartbeat, we were somewhere else.
Me and the glowing figure. One building over, inside a room with a window through which I could see Prof standing on the rooftop. Alone.
The glowing figure beside me sighed, then her glow vanished and resolved into Megan, completely naked. She fell, and I managed to catch her. Outside the window, on the next building over Prof cursed, then hopped on his disc. He sped away.
Sparks. How was I going to deal with him?
The answer was in my arms. I looked down at Megan, that perfect face, those beautiful lips. I’d been right to have faith in the Epics. I’d just chosen the wrong one.
Her eyes opened, and she saw me. “I don’t feel like killing you,” sh
e whispered.
“More wonderful words have never been spoken,” I said back.
She stared at me, then groaned, closing her eyes again. “Oh hell. The secret is the power of love. I’m going to be sick.”
“Actually, I think it’s something else,” I said.
She looked at me. I was suddenly made conscious that she was very, very naked, and I was nearly naked as well. She followed my eyes, then shrugged. I blushed and put her down, then moved to find something for her to wear. As I stood, however, clothing appeared on her—the standard jeans and shirt, shadows of clothing from another dimension. Good enough for now, I supposed.
“What is the secret, then?” she asked, sitting up and running her hand through her hair. “Every other time I’ve reincarnated, I’ve been bad when I first came back. Unable to remember myself, violent, destructive. This time … I feel nothing. What changed?”
I looked her in the eyes. “Was that building already on fire when you ran into it?”
She pursed her lips. “Yeah,” she admitted. “It was stupid. You don’t need to tell me it was. I knew you probably weren’t in there, not for real. But I thought—maybe you were, and I couldn’t risk that you might be.…” She shivered visibly.
“How afraid of the fire were you?”
“More than you can possibly know,” she whispered.
I smiled. “And that,” I said, gathering her into my arms again, “is the secret.”
Epilogue
ABOUT five hours later I sat on top of what had once been a low building in Babilar, warming my hands at a cookfire. The building now rose some twenty stories over the once-submerged street below.
Not a single building had collapsed as the waters left. “It’s the roots,” Megan said, settling down next to me and handing me a bowl of soup. She wore real clothing now, which was kind of unfortunate, but likely more practical, as it had gotten really cold in the city all of a sudden. “Those roots are tough stuff, tougher than any plant has a right to be. They’re literally holding the buildings up.” She shook her head as if amazed.